One trend emerging at the center of food retail store design is the Micro-Fulfillment Center (MFC), a new automation in the food retail industry. Although small, as the name implies, these warehouses are well equipped to autonomously fulfill online orders – fast and efficiently. Micro-fulfilment offers an end-to-end solution plugging into any grocery store’s already existing network and making ecommerce profitable.
<p>By: Carol Abel, Vice President, Education Program Development, Food Marketing Institute<br /> <img src="https://www.fmi.org/images/default-source/photos-for-staff-use/technology-images---give-photo-credit/spartannash/family-fare_fast-lane_scanning.tmb-large-350-.jpg?sfvrsn=c47e4a6e_1" data-displaymode="Thumbnail" alt="Family Fare_Fast Lane_Scanning" title="Family Fare_Fast Lane_Scanning" style="float: right; margin: 10px;" /></p> <p>One trend emerging at the center of food retail store design is the Micro-Fulfillment Center (MFC), a new automation in the food retail industry. Although small, as the name implies, these warehouses are well equipped to autonomously fulfill online orders – fast and efficiently. Micro-fulfillment offers an end-to-end solution plugging into any grocery store’s already existing network and making ecommerce profitable.</p> <p>I was lucky to get a first-hand look at how micro-fulfillment works at Sedano’s supermarket in Miami, FL, partnering with <a href="https://www.takeoff.com/">Takeoff Technologies, Inc.</a>, one of the first companies to jump on the micro-fulfillment bandwagon. During my visit, I got a better understanding of micro-fulfillment’s importance in food retail from Curt Avallone, chief business officer of <a href="https://www.takeoff.com/">Takeoff Technologies, Inc.</a> Here’s a bit of what I learned from Avallone. We will be covering all you need to know about micro-fulfilment at the <a href="https://www.fmi.org/energy-and-store-development-conference">2019 FMI Energy & Store Development Conference</a>, September 8-11, 2019 in Dallas, TX.</p> <h5>From the 30,000-Foot Level, What Is Micro-Fulfillment?</h5> <p><strong>Avallone:</strong> “Micro-fulfillment is miniaturized, automated fulfillment. An MFC is a micro-automated warehouse that is compact enough to place almost anywhere. The size of a micro-fulfillment center gives retailers several key advantages:</p> <ul> <li>It can be placed “hyperlocally,” on the store level, meaning it is close enough to where shoppers live that it dramatically reduces the last-mile delivery cost. </li> <li>Furthermore, the MFC is a significantly lower investment than a large automated warehouse.</li> </ul> <p>These two benefits give retailers the flexibility to make more targeted and strategic decisions about where they believe automated ecommerce fulfillment will be most successful.” </p> <h5>How Will Micro-Fulfillment Centers Change the Food Retail Landscape?</h5> <p><strong>Avallone:</strong> “When Clarence Saunders opened his grocery chain, Piggly Wiggly, in 1916 he launched what is now known as the self-service revolution. He placed goods on a shelf, inviting customers to hold items in their hands, and examine labels, inside brightly lit, attractive stores. He united fulfillment and marketing.</p> <p>Micro-fulfillment, and ecommerce as a whole, stands to break marketing and fulfillment apart. The store is migrating online, meaning marketing can be fully digital -- a retail store can now fit into a shopper’s hands. Micro-fulfillment has the capacity to make ecommerce accessible to a broader range of retailers because it cuts down major costs:</p> <ul> <li>The cost of picking (through automation).</li> <li>The cost of the last mile (through hyperlocal placement).</li> <li>The cost of real estate (through condensing fulfillment centers down into MFCs).</li> </ul> <p>For the grocery industry, where products are difficult to manage and the margins are slim, this has the capacity to shift the entire landscape.”</p> <h5>What Are the Implications of Ecommerce Growth in Food Retail for Real Estate Development Over the Next Decade? </h5> <p><strong>Avallone:</strong> “Stores are currently very oversized and are a huge investment for retailers. Micro-fulfillment is a great opportunity for retailers to optimize store space by stacking goods strategically, taking advantage of vertical space, and using robots to retrieve items. An MFC typically takes up only a third of a supermarket’s space, meaning there are huge possibilities for grocers to optimize and even potentially shrink down the size of their stores.”</p> <p>Micro-fulfillment will be a significant factor in the transformation of the store format and network. Join us at the <a href="https://www.fmi.org/energy-and-store-development-conference">2019 FMI Energy & Store Development Conference</a> to learn and discuss more.<br /> <br /> <em><span style="font-size: 10px;">Photo Credit: SpartanNash</span></em></p>
Powered by Versicherungsvergleich
